The Readers’ Champion Probes a world of scams and scandals Persimmon plot that gives greed a bad name...
R.M. writes: We purchased a new property off-plan from Persimmon Homes. But when our solicitor heard from the Land Registry he found the plot size had been reduced by about 30 per cent from the original plan. He asked Persimmon for compensation of £19,495 for us, as this was about a third of the value of the land. It is months since we last heard from Persimmon and we cannot keep asking our solicitor to maintain contact. We are pensioners and cannot afford huge legal costs. YOU signed on the dotted line on April 29, 2016, and the purchase agreement includes estate plans drawn up in 2013, showing plot sizes. On September 30, 2016, the plot was transferred to you by Persimmon, still showing the same plan.
But when your solicitor tried to register this, Land Registry officials told him that Persimmon had replaced the layout plan with one showing a smaller plot size. This new plan was dated April 1, 2016, and it did not match the two plans you and your solicitor were given later.
Your solicitor took this up with Persimmon. It replied: ‘The correct estate layout approval for this plot seems to be that dated September 26, 2013’. Persimmon even supplied a fresh copy. Everything matched your purchase agreement and the transfer – yet it was completely wrong.
Persimmon had taken a slice of the land you thought you were getting, and a slice of the next door plot, and had squeezed in another new house.
I put all this to Persimmon. It told me you had known all along that the plans had been changed. Unfortunately this had been explained verbally by the salesman and not in writing.
What was in writing was the old plan, attached to all the legal papers. Persimmon told me: ‘As a result of human error, the wrong plan was attached to the customer’s documents.’ So, Persimmon gave you the wrong plan with your purchase agreement. It gave the wrong plan months later when it transferred the land. When your solicitor questioned this, he was reassured that the wrong plan was, in fact, the right plan.
Persimmon told me it could not say why this false reassurance was given, because it had ‘let go’ the employee who gave it. Persimmon would not stand by what its employee had written.
Despite all of this, Persimmon insisted that you had not lost a penny, you knew what you were getting and you had got it. The most it would do was pay the small extra fee charged by the Land Registry, leaving you to pick up the legal costs.
It even blamed your solicitor for not spotting its mistakes sooner. But here is a funny thing. Persimmon says you knew what you were getting because its salesman had told you verbally about the changes.
Yet the sales contract drawn up by Persimmon itself says you must not rely on any verbal representations offered ‘by Persimmon or its employees or agents’. You must only rely on information given in writing. In a nutshell, the written contract beats the spoken word.
I am not surprised that Persimmon failed to answer your solicitor, or fobbed him off by saying the matter was under consideration. It made a complete mess of the sale and then tried to shrug off its false plans as some sort of minor clerical error.
What has been surprising is Persimmon’s attempts to fob me off as well. At one stage, Persimmon even told me you really had been warned of the changes in writing before you agreed the purchase.
When I asked for a copy, I was given a two-page checklist dealing with such things as the colour of your roof and the type of paving for the driveway. Among all this was a handwritten note saying ‘Need new conveyance plan’. This is nothing like the claim to have advised you of the changes. It was meaningless without the plan. When the plan arrived, it was the wrong one.
After several weeks, the only concession I have wrung out of Persimmon is that it will – grudgingly, I think – pay your solicitor’s fees, approaching £2,000. It can easily afford this, after squeezing in a whole extra house.
A few months ago, Persimmon boss Jeff Fairburn left the company after pocketing what has been described as an ‘obscene’ £75million bonus. Much of this came from profits made by selling houses under the Government’s Help to Buy scheme.
No wonder Ministers are said to be having second thoughts about cosying up to Persimmon. Almost half a century ago, Prime Minister Ted Heath condemned one City fat cat as ‘the unacceptable face of capitalism’.
Today, Persimmon has earned that same title. It gives greed a bad name.